I refused Krall’s offer of a lift back to Lysette’s, and set off down the high street. It was a strange jumble of shops: a boutique filled with pointlessly expensive things – burnt vanilla candles you’d have to remortgage your house to afford, porridge-coloured linen scarves – next to a hardware shop, spilling out clothes pegs and plastic washing-up bowls. Every single person I passed was white.
I took a detour across a field, determined to remind myself how beautiful it was. It was baking today, the sun beating down on me, my professional sandals with their dinky little heels no match for the mulchy path. The smell of cowpat was overwhelming.
I arrived back at Lysette’s hot and bothered, my meeting with Lawrence playing back in my mind on a maddening loop. Had I said too much or not enough? I put my key in the lock, even though part of me still felt I should be knocking. Lysette stuck her head out of the kitchen, her hair piled up on top of her head, a slash of lipstick brightening her face. The sight of her warmed me, as instinctive and automatic as breathing.
‘Hey, stranger, you’ve been ages,’ she said.
‘It was a busy day,’ I said. ‘I met one of the teachers this morning – Alison? She’s really sweet.’
‘She’s lovely, isn’t she?’
‘And then I met up with Lawrence Krall.’ I sensed her tensing, even though it was invisible. She was right to be tense – I tried to lighten it. ‘He’s such a weirdo. He wanted to meet in The Crumpet. He had carrot cake!’
Lysette took the bait: she didn’t want to go anywhere too dangerous either.
‘Well, there’s been baking going down here too!’ she said, rallying, her voice pitched like a ’50s children’s TV presenter. ‘We’ve been making cinnamon biscuits. They’re in the oven . . .’
‘Smelling magnificent, I might add!’
‘Saffron and Max are playing in the garden until they’re ready.’
Max was here too. The thought of him at the funeral – so earnest, clutching his Woody doll like his life depended on it – had continued to haunt me. I’d asked Lawrence’s team to reach out to Joshua, to let him know that I had experience with bereaved children, but had heard nothing.
‘Shall I go and see what they’re up to?’ I asked.
‘Good call. Only an hour till wine o’clock.’
‘Surely it’s wine o’clock already in Bogotá?’ I said, the words catching in my throat. Jim jolted his way into my mind, yet again. His presence felt more like an itch than a yearning, an insect bite that refused to be soothed.
‘What time’s lover boy arriving?’ asked Lysette, laughing.
‘Lover boy said he’d drive down as soon as he could get away from work. So probably midnight. Tomorrow. He’s booked somewhere, though, so we’ll be out your hair.’
‘Too right he has. I don’t want any hanky panky under my roof,’ shouted Lysette after my retreating back.
I turned round and gave her a sneaky V sign, then stepped through the french windows into the lush garden.
‘Auntie Mia!’ said Saffron. She was still on a seesaw of emotion, so it was a lovely treat to see her round face light up with genuine joy. I dropped to my knees to hug her, then turned to Max. It was hard to let her wriggly, cinnamon-scented body go – I only did so that Max wouldn’t feel any more alone than he probably already did. He was watching me owlishly, big, heavy-looking glasses reflecting the sun. He’d sat Woody in a chair, his legs stuck out in front of him.
‘Hi, Max, do you remember me? I hear you’ve been making biscuits.’
‘Yes, we have,’ he said in a formal voice. ‘I did the stirring.’
‘That’s great! They smell lovely. You must’ve done very good stirring.’
‘And I . . .’ said Saffron, pulling hard on my sleeve, ‘I did greasing the tray and breaking the eggs.’
‘Very good work. And what are you playing out here?’
‘Funerals,’ said Max, matter-of-fact.
‘And weddings!’ said Saffron, but my attention was focused on Max now.
‘And how do you play funerals?’ I said, keeping my voice deliberately gentle. It felt very important for him to know that I wasn’t shocked or angry.
‘Someone has to die,’ he said. ‘And then you tell people they have died. I told Woody.’ He turned to look at him, giving a proud smile to his plastic stoicism.
‘Did Woody love the person very much?’ I said, measuring out my words carefully.
Saffron was pulling on my sleeve, and I pulled her in close again, hoping it would buy me another minute or two.
‘Woody’s daddy died,’ he said, ‘but he is very brave. We’ve dug him a hole to live in and he is also in heaven.’
The words sounded like a tongue-twister he’d learned to recite – death is confusing enough for adults, but the way children are expected to wrap their brains around it is more for our benefit than theirs, I often think. Max gestured to a nearby flower bed. Lysette’s roses grew there: I wasn’t sure how thrilled she’d be at the gaping trench the children had dug, but I didn’t let on.
‘That’s the grave!’ said Saffron in a suitably dramatic tone.
Max looked at me, dark eyes searching my face for a reaction. There was so much need burning away inside of him.
‘Do you want to show me?’ I said softly, extending my hand. He slowly reached his hand to meet mine and we walked across the lawn, Saffron following.
‘This is where he will live now,’ he told me. ‘Did you know that worms eat people?’
‘They eat people!’ shouted Saffron at the top of her voice, laughing like a hyena. She was trying to make sense of it too, in her own, very different way. She ran across the garden, returning with a bashed-up-looking doll. It was naked, curly hair askew. Other than Sindy, saved by her impeccable sense of style, I’ve always found dolls borderline creepy. Max solemnly took it from her and laid it in the makeshift grave.
‘I am going to bury him now.’
‘He’ had quite a wild haircut, but it wasn’t the point.
‘Are you?’ I asked. ‘Do you want to say anything?’
‘Ashes and ashes,’ he said solemnly. ‘Dust and dust . . .’ He petered out.
‘Is there anything you want to say about Woody’s dad?’ I said, hoping I wasn’t overstepping the mark. He felt so ripe with emotion, I couldn’t help but want to give him a means to let it out.
‘Woody’s dad,’ he declared, ‘you were a very kind doll. You always read Woody his bedtime story, even when he had stayed up too late because he hadn’t finished his tea and needed a snack of pepperoni.’ I felt my eyes prickle, but I pushed down the emotion, made my focus absolute. ‘Woody will miss you very much and he will look after his daddy – no, his mummy – very much. Amen.’
‘Now we sing a hymn!’ shouted Saffron, immediately breaking into a rousing rendition of ‘Let It Go’, complete with swaying and arm waving.
Max stayed silent a second, then joined in. After a couple of lines he abandoned singing and started violently pushing the soil back into the trench with his hands, his little face intense with effort. I stayed kneeling next to him, silently telling him that he wasn’t alone.
Lysette appeared at the french windows, her hands encased in big white oven mitts so she could hold the hot baking tray.
‘Biscuits are served!’ she trilled. ‘And sauvignon blanc,’ she added, sotto voce. Saffron stopped singing, rushed towards her mum like she’d been shot from a gun. Max ignored her, his hands, even his glasses, covered in soil like he was a small, bookish mole. ‘Come on, Max,’ she said, ‘come and try your creations.’
He looked up for a split second, then went back to scrabbling in the dirt.
‘We were playing funerals,’ said Saffron.
The smile on Lysette’s face immediately disappeared. She stared over at me, face like thunder, and I stood up, brushing grass from my knees. I walked over to her.
‘I think it’s really helpful for him,’ I said quietly.
‘Oh do you?’ said Lysette, acidly. She turned on her heel, her next words spat over her shoulder. ‘Well, thank God you’re here then.’
I tried to keep calm, to stop the acid of her words burning into me. I crossed back to Max, aware my whole body was shaking. I knelt back down. He was patting the soil flat, filthy hands thumping hard against the ground.
‘You’ve done such a brilliant job, Max.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, peering round at me.
‘It’s up to you, but now you’ve finished, we could go in and taste your biscuits?’
He looked up at me, almost dazed. ‘OK,’ he said automatically.
‘Is there anything else left that you want to say to Woody or his dad before we go?’
‘No,’ he said, abruptly standing and brushing the soil off his trousers, his eyes not meeting mine. Was he ashamed of letting me see his grief, however obliquely? ‘We don’t always have to do talking.’
I went to reach out a hand, but there was something in his body language that told me it wouldn’t be welcome.
‘Then let’s get Woody and go inside.’
He ran to the chair where Woody sat, and brought the doll up close to his face. I slowly approached him.
‘Daddy’s very proud of you,’ he muttered, quite audible – his whispering skills left something to be desired. ‘You can always talk to me. You don’t need to talk to anybody else. Always talk to me.’
He looked up at me, his face a pale moon. It was as if summer hadn’t touched him, which in a sense it hadn’t.
‘So Woody tells you his secrets too?’ I said. Was I asking too much? It was so hard to feign indifference in the face of his obvious distress. His free hand, muddy and warm, suddenly reached for mine. ‘You said to me the first time I met you that you tell him your secrets?’
‘Everyone has secrets. It’s what makes you like a grown-up,’ he replied, like it was patently obvious.
‘Right,’ I said, slowly leading him across the grass. ‘So do you tell Daddy your secrets like Woody does?’
I thought of Joshua at the funeral – the way he’d ignited at the felony of Max grabbing multiple sausage rolls. He wouldn’t have been my first choice for a secret.
Max yanked his hand away, taking off at a run.
‘Biscuits!’ he yelled, careering towards the french windows. My progress was slower – I was like an amateurish puppeteer, willing my reluctant feet to do my bidding.
*
Lysette was bristling with aggressive maternity. The children were sitting at the table, white china plates in front of them, the now legendary biscuits stacked on a cake stand I would have sworn she didn’t own. There seemed to be so many things I didn’t know about Lysette, big and small. Blackened and misshapen, the biscuits felt almost as out of place in their surroundings as I did.
‘Shall I put the kettle on?’ I said, my voice ringing high and tinny in my ears. This was ridiculous. I hadn’t even started the funeral game – all I’d done was help to give it parameters, made it safe – but here I was, pandering to the latest of Lysette’s savage mood swings. I pulled a couple of mugs out of the cupboard, aware of the way they banged on the kitchen counter as I put them down.
‘Don’t worry about doing that,’ said Lysette, spinning round to face me. ‘You’re our guest.’
I could see a half-empty wine glass balanced on the draining board – she was turning the ’50s housewife vibe right up to the max.
‘I wasn’t sure if you wanted tea, or if you were just going to go with wine?’ I hated myself for saying it as soon as the words had left my mouth. The last thing the children needed was to be sitting in the toxic fog of our passive-aggressive sniping. Max was oblivious, but I could see Saffron’s chocolate brown eyes tracking us – even six-year-old girls know how to pinch without leaving a bruise. I put a hand on Lysette’s arm, forced myself to smile without baring my teeth. ‘Let me do it. Why don’t you sit down and put your feet up?’
‘I couldn’t possibly,’ she hissed, refusing to accept the rather manky olive branch I’d held out. ‘I’m not the one who’s been working all day.’ Her eyes were narrow slits. ‘Putting in overtime.’
I had to turn away, my teeth grinding. I turned back, all smiles.
‘I’m going to go upstairs and get ready,’ I said. ‘Uncle Patrick’s coming later,’ I said, addressing myself to Saffron. I couldn’t even bear to make eye contact with Lysette in that moment. ‘Lovely to see you again, Max.’
But as I left the kitchen a wail erupted.
‘Where are you going?’ sobbed Max, inconsolable. ‘Where are you going?’ I ran back in, dropped myself down into the chair next to him.
‘She’s only going upstairs,’ said Lysette, her eyes burning with a new level of rage. Of course – from her point of view this just confirmed my criminality. Why could no one see – why could none of these parents see – that this child needed more support than he was getting?
‘That’s true, Max,’ I said. ‘My boyfriend’s coming to see me, and I want to make myself look extra pretty.’ My eyes flicked to Saffron, conscious of the terrible fairy-tale-princess logic of that statement. ‘We’re going to talk about lots and lots of things together,’ I added.
‘You’re old, Auntie Mia,’ she piped up. ‘I’ve got a boyfriend who is not Max. You should have a husband. Grown-ups have husbands.’
The afternoon kept going from bad to worse: I didn’t need to look at Lysette to know how much she was enjoying this. Had Saffron sucked up the spiteful energy between us, recast herself as Mummy’s second in command? I was about to give her a quick tutorial from Feminism For Six-Year-Olds, but unfortunately no one had written it, and my attention needed to stay focused on Max. His glasses were moist, like a car windscreen on a drizzly Tuesday.
‘I promise I’ll come down and say goodbye to you when your daddy comes to collect you.’
He gave a nod, tears suddenly a thing of the past, and reached a mechanical hand out for another biscuit.
‘Thank you,’ he said, not even bothering to make contact.
I stood up, brushing blackened biscuit crumbs off my knees. ‘OK then!’ I said, all fake cheer, backing out of the room. I was going to text Patrick as soon as I was out of this cinnamon-scented hell and tell him that speed limits had no place in his life right now.
*
I lay on the stupid inflatable mattress waiting for my heart rate to slow. I tried to push my fury with Lysette aside – to tell myself it was nothing more than my bruised ego taking everything too personally – but sainthood wasn’t one of my strengths.
Thinking about Max was at least a useful distraction. Could I try to engage Joshua when he arrived, tell him that I thought Max would benefit from more support? What was this constant talk about secrets – was it simply a way of articulating how much he missed that deep, snuggly closeness with his mum or was it something more troubling? I rehearsed it in my head, terrified I’d come over as some chilly, childless professional, too proud of the letters after my name, pronouncing on other people’s parenting styles. I felt another spurt of rage towards Lysette: I hated thinking she was using her earth mother status to keep me down, but the thought wouldn’t die. The truth was, I didn’t have tons of female friends – perhaps because I feared the kind of silent, deadly warfare that we’d always scorned as a cliché we’d never resort to. I’d relied too much on her to be my everything – it was humiliating to realise I might have been the only one holding on to a torn and faded photograph.
When the doorbell rang, I sprang up. I hadn’t wanted to go to the bathroom in case it forced me into any more contact with Lysette, so I’d applied my make-up in the reflection of a tiny compact. My lipstick looked garishly red, my mascara smudgy. I watched Lysette open the door from my vantage point on the top landing. Of course it wasn’t Patrick – it was utter insanity to expect that he’d have proved his love by defying the land-speed record – but nor was it Joshua.
‘So where’s the little man?’ asked Lisa. Everything about her seemed so efficient. Her cleverly highlighted hair was cut in a sleek cap that fell precisely around her sharp features, her car keys were held at the ready in her left hand. She was wearing the kind of jeans that were neither fashionable nor unfashionable, simply there.
‘He’s been busy baking biscuits,’ replied Lysette. And playing funerals, I silently added, forcing myself down the stairs. Why was everyone dealing in half-truths? Half-truths are so much worse than lies: they’re like ruthless assassins, deadly in their invisibility.
‘Hi, Lisa,’ I said. For some reason I put out my hand, just as she leaned in for a brisk kiss. We laughed awkwardly. I couldn’t quite bring myself to look at Lysette.
‘So you’re still here, working your magic?’ she said. As she was speaking, Max slunk through the kitchen door and wedged himself against me.
‘I’m doing my best,’ I said, looking down at him. His hands looped around my leg.
‘Well, it looks like you’ve got yourself a fan!’ she said, and I braced myself for a splash of vitriol from Lysette. This was the moment to say something, but it was also the absolute opposite.
‘Are you staying for a cup of tea?’ I said, aware of how presumptuous it was for me to be the one to ask.
‘Yeah, stay for a cup of tea,’ added Lysette, although I didn’t sense much enthusiasm in her tone.
Lisa pulled a disappointed face that didn’t quite convince. ‘I’d have loved that – I’ve got so many questions bubbling away about what it is you actually do – but we have to get back and get some supper into this one.’ She looked down at him. ‘Don’t we?’
How must it feel for Max, this new normal that was being imposed with such brutal determination? I might’ve been imagining it, but his grip on my leg felt like a creeping vine that didn’t want to let go.
‘That’s a pity,’ I said. ‘But I would love the chance to talk to you – to you and to Joshua – about what it is I’m doing here. Perhaps I could give him a call? I don’t want to impose, but if I can be any support before I go . . .’
Lysette shot me a dark look which I ignored, keeping my fixed smile in place and reaching a hand down to squeeze Max’s shoulder. I couldn’t abandon him: if there was the slightest chance I could help him to be heard, I had to take it.
‘How kind! I’ll make sure to tell him that when he manages to fight his way out of the office. It’s awful . . .’ she added in an undertone, ‘all he wants to do is spend time with this little one, but he’s got a massive deal going through which he has to be there for. It’s all hands to the pump for me and the kids.’
Was her husband part of the war effort? Her actual, current husband, not her ex?
‘You can bring him to us any time,’ said Lysette. ‘You know, Sarah was here the whole time, so it’s pretty much his second home.’
Was it barbed? It felt barbed. But why would it be, when their divorce was such a civilised affair?
‘You’re so kind,’ said Lisa, ‘thank you. I don’t know what we’d do without you.’
Everyone was saying ‘kind’ a bit more than was strictly necessary. She pecked both of our cheeks, chivvying Max to follow her to the car – she felt like a kitchen appliance which had only one setting.
‘Bye, Max,’ I said, dropping down to my knees: as they hit the carpet a flash of Peter Grieve came floating up, unbidden. ‘See you again soon. Look after Woody.’
Lisa looked down on us, her smile never wavering. Max nodded earnestly, clutching hold of Woody, then set off down the path without saying a word. Lisa looked back at me as she left.
‘I don’t know how you do it!’ she said. ‘I mean, bless them, but I enjoyed mine far more once we could have a sensible exchange about what was on the radio.’
‘She’s the kiddie whisperer, don’t forget,’ said Lysette, but I was too distracted to take the bait.
There in the car, examining her lovely face in the passenger side mirror, sat Kimberley.